Commodities are often stored in bulk by merchants and sold off a little at a time in a variety of different transactions. With conventional dispensing devices, in some of the transactions a little more of a commodity may be dispensed and in other transactions a little less of the commodity may be dispensed. In some cases, commodities may be dispensed without collecting money. Accordingly, dispensing of commodities often leads to losses. Moreover, these losses become more significant as the commodity being dispensed becomes more valuable.
Beer represents one such valuable commodity. Beer is often stored in kegs by a bar owner and sold by the glass or pitcher to bar customers. Due the effervescent, perishable nature of beer and the nature of bar operations, dispensing beer from a tap into a container too often results in beer losses.
For example, beer is a perishable commodity that needs to be kept within a temperature range to maintain its quality. Failure to maintain proper temperature may lead to losses. Beer often foams to form a head as it hits a glass or pitcher. A bartender may then let the tap run to overfill the container but otherwise get a desired combination of beer and head. Overfilling containers represents another source of beer losses. The tendency of beer to foam using conventional beer dispensing devices may be controlled by careful attention to details, such as properly positioning a container to receive beer from a tap and maintaining proper beer pressure. Unfortunately, bars are often busy places and bartenders may get distracted while dispensing beer. Moreover, bartenders and owners are typically unaware of beer pressure so long as the pressure is not extremely high or extremely low. Accordingly, undesirably foamy beer leads to other beer losses. In addition, bar owners often employ bartenders. A few bartenders may be tempted to give away beer to friends or otherwise pilfer beer, leading to further beer losses. Conventional beer dispensing devices fail to institute controls which tend to ameliorate such beer losses.
In addition, bar owners face legal requirements in many locations concerning hours during which beer may and may not be dispensed. Failure to comply with such regulations subjects the bar owner to the risk of being assessed with a penalty. Unfortunately, conventional beer dispensing devices do not allow a bar owner to maintain sufficiently tight control over the dispensing of beer to ensure compliance with such regulations. For example, bar owners or managers may not always be present to supervise bar operations, and bartenders may dispense beer after hours in spite of explicit instructions not to do so. In other situations, bartenders may accidentally dispense beer after hours because they are not aware of the time.